Advancements in communication technologies have been implemented in many varied types of communication systems. Their implementation has permitted the improved communication capacities of existing communication systems and the introduction of communication systems. Cellular, and cellular-like, mobile communication systems are exemplary of communication systems made possible as a result of advancements in communication technologies.
Successive generations of cellular communication systems have been developed and deployed with each generation taking advantage of available communication technologies. While early-generation communication systems provided primarily voice communication services and only limited data communication services, newer-generation systems provide increased data services. Cellular mobile radio communication systems are, as a result, increasingly used, not just for voice services, but also for data communication services.
A user typically communicates by way of a cellular communication system through use of a mobile station. A mobile station is a radio transceiver, typically of dimensions permitting its convenient carriage and operation by the user. The mobile station is powered by a portable power supply that is carried together with, and forms part of, the mobile station. During operation of the mobile station, the stored energy of the portable power supply is depleted, and the power supply must be recharged or replaced once the stored energy is depleted to an extent that limits, or prevents, the continued operation of the mobile station. To increase the operational period of a mobile station, efforts are made to reduce its energy requirements.
Schemes have been developed, relating to monitoring, by a mobile station, for a pending communication service. A mobile station is maintained in a low-power, sometimes referred to as a sleep mode, and the mobile station periodically wakes up to monitor a paging channel to determine whether the mobile station is paged. If the mobile station is not paged, the mobile station returns to a sleep, or other low-power, mode, thereby to minimize power dissipation. The page of the mobile station must appropriately identify the mobile station so that the mobile station is aware that it, and not a different mobile station, is being paged. At least one proposed system provides for a two-stage paging scheme in which two different channels are used to send a page to page a mobile station. The 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) is considering proposals for a new air interface, referred to as Long Term Evolution (LTE). In the proposed paging scheme, the mobile station, referred to as a UE (User Equipment), wakes up and monitors a first channel. Assignment information, if sent thereon, provides information usable by the UE to then tune to the second paging channel. Proposals provide for the communication on the first paging channel of a group address, referred to as a PI-RNTI. More than one UE might share the same address. Any UE that detects the group address communicated on the first paging channel then also monitors the second paging channel for a page message sent thereon. In one existing proposal, a unique identifier, such as a 32-bit TMSI (Temporary Mobile Station Identity), is sent on the second paging channel to page the mobile station. Because the unique identifier uniquely identifies the UE, only the UE that is intended to be paged is paged by the transmission. The second paging channel is, however, also used for traffic services, such as the communication of voice traffic or data traffic. The use of a lengthy, unique identifier to identify the UE that is paged therefore comes at the expense of capacity on the channel also to be used for a traffic service.
If a manner could be provided by which to reduce the lengths of paging messages sent on the second paging channel, additional system capacity would be made available for communication pursuant to a traffic service.
It is in light of this background information related to paging of a mobile station in a radio communication system that the significant improvements of the present disclosure have evolved.